


I Offer You Elysium

by starofroselight (afwrit)



Series: our (chain of servers) held by a dream - [dsmp AU] [2]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Real Person Fiction
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Death, Deity Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Falling In Love, Fear, First Meetings, Gen, Homophobic Language, M/M, Mild Language, Sexist Language, Slow Burn, Video Game Mechanics, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29541240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afwrit/pseuds/starofroselight
Summary: When George loses his first canon life alongside his childhood friend Sapnap, the upside is that they respawn together. The downside is that they are stuck worlds away from their lives and their homes, with the soul-crushing prospect of survival in mutual isolation looking over them.Enter Dream, a mysterious observer who claims to be a speedrunner.He's not. And George is set on discovering what exactly Dream is as he opens them up to a fantastical new world where death is nothing but a temporary setback.~-~A Dream SMP AU exploration of Dreamnotfound and the Dream Team + eventual Muffinteers. Tags contains spoilers. Updates Mondays.Sidequel toHe Calls You Theseus
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: our (chain of servers) held by a dream - [dsmp AU] [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2165742
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	1. George and Sapnap Fucking Die (And for Some Reason George is Upset About It)

**Author's Note:**

> My full respect to the content creators for making such a vivid world I could write for. Despite the tags, this is not intended to be Real Person Fiction (this is a constraint of the AO3 tagging system) rather the characters these wonderful people are playing on the Dream SMP. I do not mind if my fics are shared cross-platform, as long as I am credited appropriately. If any of the real-life people mentioned in my stories are uncomfortable, I will take it down immediately without hesitation. Likewise, if any of them see it, I hope they enjoy.
> 
> Quick note! You don't have to read _He Calls You Theseus_ to understand the events of this story, but they will run in parallel with each other and intersect at times. If you're an SBI fan or a Technoblade fan, I highly suggest you check it out. 
> 
> That said, please enjoy.

**Georgenotfound hit the ground too hard while trying to escape Sapnap.**

**Sapnap hit the ground too hard.**

_"They died?!" Bad stumbled back._

_“Holy sh—”_

_Bad’s eyes narrowed._

_Skeppy chuckled. “Holy cow, that sucks that you didn’t know.”_

_It was a few minutes of silence between them as the information digested._

_“No respawn?”_

_“Not that I’ve seen. They must have ended up somewhere else. I hope they’re okay.”_

* * *

The sound of birdsong parrots around them as one of the duo blinks and sits up. 

He rubs his eyes then takes in his surroundings.

A prairie stretches out in front of him. The tall grasses sway light in the wind, an earthy, aromatic scent carried along with them. Horses graze a few paces from where he sits, oblivious to the fact that a few moments earlier their existence had been spontaneously brought forth from nothing. 

He turns his head.

At the east is a dark oak forest with strange spotted fungus that erupts from the ground alongside the treeline. To the south lies a jungle, a regurgitation of tangled green mess, hot and humid. 

By all accounts, it's a beautiful day. It’s noontime. 

He looks down.

They’ve respawned in cornflowers. The first thing he notices about them is that they’re a beautiful shade of blue.

The man who has awoken is dressed in plain clothes with few defining features. His hair is short and maintained, well-groomed. He blinks his heterochromatic eyes again; the right brown, the left blue. He takes in their surroundings in a grand sweep of the area.

His name is George. 

George turns to his side. 

His companion is sprawled out beside him, snoring. His black hair is longer, tied back with a white strip of fabric. He’s clothed in layers, first in black, then white overwear. More effort to keep clean but visually striking. He’s a considerable size larger than George, both taller and bigger. There’s lots of hidden pockets in the layers, for both emergency weaponry and equally important emergency snacking.

Now, all of their pockets are empty.

George lingered where he sat, cradling his forehead. There was no mark, no residual pain of the death that had occured moments ago, only a subconscious feeling that there should be something after losing his first life.

He looks to Sapnap, scans the area around him, then slaps his face as hard as he can muster.

Sapnap wakes up in a start.

Like that, the peaceful pleasantry of nature is ruined by two morons screaming at each other. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Sapnap screams, balling his hands into fists. His face contorts into a sneer as he stands, a red handprint flared on his face.

George throws his own hands up into the air, exasperated. "You idiot!"

Sapnap’s about to hit George when he pauses, neck craning to the side. The world is unfamiliar, and George watches realization hit.

“Oh. Oh shit.” Sapnap bites his lip. He looks up at the sky for answers, but the idyllic white clouds offer none. 

George feels like he’s been buried alive. Or more aptly, he’s recovered from being buried alive but still stuck in the coffin, pounding against the lid.

There’s no one here. No one that can help them. None of their items are with them, none of George’s books or Sapnap’s hoard of special arrows. 

Sapnap seizes up and George works himself up into a lather.

“How long did it take us to respawn.” George checks his walkie-talkie, searching for answers, dates, anything that can assuage his fears. Instead, he finds nothing but a cleared chat log on the dim-lit screen. “How long—It could have been days, it could have been years—”

“George, calm down.” Sapnap’s breathing is even, his posture straight. He’s frozen (and five seconds from freaking out) but George needs him more than he needs to complain.

“I can’t believe I could be that stupid—” He tears himself down, racking his brain for a solution to the problem before him. No, it’s irreversible, they’ve—he’s—made a horrible mistake to which there is no fix, no reparation, no going back—

He’s leaning down, hunched forward close to the fetal position. George loves numbers and the calm their climbing totality brings. There’s no number he knows that can change the past, no comfort he can find hidden in the digits.

“George.”

His attention snaps to Sapnap and he uncurls like a hiding silverfish, lashing out:

“—stupid enough to follow you!”

Sapnap recoils like he’s been stung. His posture subconsciously shifts defensive, shoulders tucked up and arms in front of his chest. All restraint he’d been holding back for George’s sake is unleashed.

"It's not my fault! We could have taken zombies, there's two of us!" Sapnap can consistently take down a zombie in two swings. One if he’s holding an axe. If George had trusted him and stood beside him as a brother in arms, both of them would be at home in bed arguing over something equally as useless. But they would be home.

George knows he’s right. He can’t accept that at the moment, though.

"If you had run with me—"

"Running got us killed! Stop being such a pussy!" Sapnap hits the back of his hand against George’s arm, a joking way with an open palm, but it’s still too hard for the current scenario. George pulls back, arcing his torso away from Sapnap.

“Oh, it’s _running_ that got us killed?” George’s odd eyes are wide, a furious half-smile twitching on his face. That statement is dead wrong, and both of them know it. George is good at escaping. Even if he shouldn’t always run, he thinks while he moves, and he never leaves a friend behind. “Funny, that’s not how I remember it!”

Instead, Sapnap doubles down. “Yeah, it was! I wanted to fight, you didn’t fight. I wanted to head back to town, you said we could lose them and double back around! And when I pushed you, I—” 

“You killed me.” George’s voice falls to dead solemness.

They stare at each other as the sun beats down on them.

George relents first. The anger melts out of his form and consolidates into something that looks like resignation.

"I don't want to talk to you anymore."

Sapnap rolls his eyes and clicks the roof of his mouth. "Pussy."

I don't want to talk to you." George reiterates.

"Pussy."

“We’re wasting time.” George brushes off invisible grime from his pants and stands up.

“Because you’re a pussy.” Just because George is moving on with dignity doesn’t mean he has to.

“Oh my god, Sapnap, if we don’t get supplies we’re going to have to deal with more—I cannot believe we died on the safest server—”

“Because of you.”

“Saying it over and over again doesn’t make you magically right!” George waves his hand, then snaps. “Wow, look! Magic! And Sapnap’s still wrong!”

“It’s your fault.”

George bites his teeth down and turns on his heel. He wants to scream that he knows it’s his fault, that he tried, god knows he tried, but he wasn’t good enough and it’s going to grind against his soul until he can’t take it. The ice that’s built up from his forced detachment greets Sapnap instead.

“I’m going to get wood and sticks. You go do whatever. I don’t care.”

Sapnap rolled his eyes. "Try not to break a nail." 

As George walks away, he bounces up off the ground. He’s agile and full of energy, but his grip feels too light without a weapon. He bounds towards the jungle; his least favorite environment to work in, but one of the easiest places to find ruins. Even if there aren’t people here now, time is a funny thing, and swords last longer than their soldiers.

George walks along the prairie. The horses glance up at him then return to their grazing. _A good source of leather_ , his mind reminds him. He pushes the thought aside. He knows it’s inevitable but hell, he wants to prolong his next brush with death for as long as he can.

He picks up a cornflower. The striking blue is comforting (even if he can already hear future Sapnap calling him gay for the sentiment).

Then he heads to the forest.

It’s not the safest move. Fire spreads through forests without much warning and the leaves provide perfect vantage points for monsters, but George is irritated and forests are comforting to him. The light is bright and it hurts. He sometimes wishes he had some way to block it out. He’s tried hats and different equipment at Sapnap’s discretion, but every solution is bulky and interferes with his reading time.

So he bears with it.

He forages sticks and whittles down branches. It’s menial work, the kind he can get lost in. His body feels perfectly rested, perfectly well. It feels too perfect. The leaves crackle under his hands and he’s surprised by the red skin of an apple. There isn’t the faintest trace of hunger in his body, so he keeps the fruit in his pocket. Sapnap runs everywhere without a care in the world or consideration for who gets him breakfast, and George can already anticipate the argument offering breakfast could offset.

He’s using a stick as a sword, wacking at the weeds and growth that intercepts him as he makes his way further into the forest. There’s an aspect of home in forests of dark oak, he finds. An element where he can center himself. It’s beautiful, and the fertile ground lends itself to the creation of even more lovely flower fields.

He checks his peripherals. He’s alone aside from the mobs that have been moving around him ambivalent to his presence. Sapnap’s stomping is absent from the ambiance.

George takes this moment alone to wipe his face.

He won’t cry in front of Sapnap. It’s a stupid thing to do; he’ll be mocked and expected to play it off like it doesn’t hurt, but shit, it really does. And he can’t take it.

He’s lost his first life. He’s lost his first life in _Hypixel_ of all places and now he’s worlds away from home. Hypixel, the bastion of society. Hypixel, where thousands of players live their lives and pass through, where death messages are buried in the sheer volume of chat. And the one benefit of dying somewhere thought to be safe, denied. 

The gravity of their situation weighs on his mind like bedrock. It’s a reality that hasn’t hit Sapnap yet. If it had, George is sure his reaction would have been more extreme. More Sapnap. 

First lives are colloquially referred to as the Life of the Fool. George understands why; he’s used the terminology a few times in casual conversations. It’s the first slip-up, the first understanding that death is inevitable and it is not a matter of if it comes, but when. It’s a humbling moment, meant to teach and learn from. 

Not punish. Not like this.

George knows from the moment he sits up that it’s a new world. It’s empty, empty from all the hallmarks of civilization. There are no paths, no lights, no portals—not a structure in sight.

His stomach flips. He’s glad he wasn’t hungry earlier.

There’s a word for the sort of server they’re stuck on: singleplayer.

It can happen, sometimes. George has heard the horror stories. They spread as quickly as the comforting tales do, joining similar nightmarish tales; a server falling filled with people, worlds destabilizing and leaving behind physical wounds no amount of potions or rest can heal, mental scars that stick around longer. No, singleplayer is its own beast, a shadow more material than the Farlands yet rarer than the Wither.

Singleplayer worlds are new servers that exist outside of the discovered realms. Within them there’s no link to The End, no established connections to other servers for trade or travel. The benefits of interconnectivity, of quick travel between portals, is that a player does not have to start from scratch. Building one’s way up from the stone age and into netherite is a challenge attempted by the foolish. It requires a spectrum of skills, item management, inventory balancing, and interwoven layers of knowledge about the world itself. 

It’s the job of explorers to find servers before they’re found through respawning. George doesn’t know much about the profession other than that fact. Experienced explorers use other methods of travel, with their own levels of dangers and insurance. If he recalls correctly, it has something to do with The End and the death of a dragon. Then, after the explorers have established the server as unique, architects move in and build portals. It’s not a perfect system—exploration is a dangerous job with little company. Builders can be corrupt and cruel, extracting tolls on travelers or demanding more payment for their services, but it works. 

Well, it works until it doesn’t. It’s the best system ordinary folk have. Not everyone has the skills for sustained survival out in the wilds, and even fewer want it. The closest brush most had with portal mechanics was the hub room.

In Hypixel’s hub room, there are hundreds of portals. When servers rise, a new portal is lit and linked to the architect’s structure. When a server falls, the portal shatters itself inward. 

That’s the horror of it all. The worlds are unstable and they are trapped. It doesn’t matter that they have another life to use, it doesn’t matter that provided enough time, they may be able to portal their way toward civilization. No, there’s a deeper fear that a new, unstable world will fall.

And George hates considering how real that possibility is. It’s a non-zero chance, more probable than improbable. 

Their lifeline to civilization rests on the aligning of the impossible. 

There’s one thread that connects those that survive a singleplayer world long enough for others to enter. A thread that George follows through the maze of implication. Each is hundreds of years old. Their own mythology surrounds them like a wall of fog. More often than not they are mages, but each is distant in their own way.

George’s vision clouds again. He knows, he knows what this will do to them, and he doesn’t know how to tell Sapnap. If they ever see their friends again (and as moment by moment passes he believes it less and less) it will be decades into the future when they are changed and different.

Does he tell Sapnap? And offer what solution? There’s two choices: survival and death. Surviving means a constant grind until they get the supplies needed to craft their own way home. It’s a long process fraught with dangers. Then again, they could burn their second lives in a suicide pact and try for a server with more players but that carries the risk of separation. Or worse, one of them could respawn in the singleplayer world with the other returning to Hypixel.

There’s a third way, too. Giving up and surviving amongst this server Overworld, waiting for a rescue party or radically accepting that they are not ever going home.

It’s picking the best of a bad lot. And it’s a bad lot to pick from.

It’s ironic he has all the knowledge he needs to make a decision and he’s struggling with wisdom. And he’s supposed to be the smart one.

The buzz from his communicator snaps him out of it.

_“You found anyone yet?”_

George exhales slowly. Lets the breath draw out against his teeth. It takes all his self control not to snap back into the walkie-talkie. It sits at his hip, buckled onto his belt loop, waiting for his response. He picks it and with all the grace afforded to him, calmly says,

_“No.”_

_“You sound depressed.”_

Even though he’s colorblind, George sees red.

 _“Maybe it’s because I died.”_ He can’t hold the bite off of his words forever and he jumps at Sapnap’s throat.

 _“Yeah, and we’re better._ ”

The energy drains out of George’s body and voice. _“Are you done?”_

_“Done with what?”_

_“Being an asshole.”_

_“Language.”_ Sapnap’s voice goes high and nasally in, what George has to admit, is a scarily good imitation of BadBoyHalo. 

_“I cannot believe you’re—Actually, I can. You’re awful. We can’t—”_

_We can’t even go see him._

_“Someone had to say it.”_

George only just holds onto his response of, _No, he didn’t_.

Being the mature one is taxing.

_“I hate you.”_

_“Oh George, I’ll still love you even if no one else will.”_

_“Do you have wood?”_ He regrets the words the instant they leave his mouth.

_“Oh, do I have wood—”_

_“Sapnap, don’t.”_ He didn’t have the patience for dick jokes. _“Do you.”_

_“You really don’t get it, do you.”_

_“Get what?”_

_“No, it’s fine. Who else are we going to talk to? Not each other, I guess. You’re right as always, George. Let’s stay miserable because we can. Sorry for trying to pick up the mood.”_

_“Sapnap.”_

Silence. George feels a pang of guilt strike through his chest.

_“Sapnap!”_

No response.

George hits at the side of his communicator. 

Static roars through.

George jumps at the harsh sound.

“I’ve never heard it do that before.” If there was someone who could fuck up a standard communicator though, it would be Sapnap. He fiddles with the buttons at the side, huffing.

Then a prickling sensation trickles across his skin. It’s like an ice cube down his back.

George is reminded of the time he awoke in the middle of the night to Sapnap having broken into his bedroom, staring at him and unsure how to wake him up. It feels like the eyes of a cat. It feels like being watched.

He looked around at the forest canopy. He’s wandered aimlessly throughout the conversation, and he’s clutching his gathered sticks and wood to his back. He’s the definition of an easy target.

“Hello?”

Somewhere nearby, a chicken clucked.

“If someone’s there, this isn’t funny.”

His hopes catch in his throat. If someone is with them, watching them, and isn’t helping them—

The odds of getting home just got worse.

George prefers to think he’s losing his mind. 

The cornflower he picked earlier rests against his shirt like a badge. He lifts it from where he’s tucked the stem into the fabric folds and places the flower against the base of a nearby tree.

Just in case.

“Here. It’s a peace offering. You know, like white flags. We’re not here to hurt anybody.” Then George realizes that if his observer was here to hurt him, he’d given away he wasn’t alone and put Sapnap in danger. “I’m not here to hurt anybody,” he amends and puts his hands in his pockets.

It didn’t matter what Sapnap said or did, the trouble he’d gotten them into over the past years, or even that he had been the one to get them killed. George would protect him.

After all, they had grown up together. 

On the edges of a server too small to be of importance, Sapnap had lived in the middle of town. It’s name was equally unimportant. His father was a town guard, his mother a priest. Both were busy and left him to entertain himself. During the day he was expected to be outside of the house and within town borders. At night, he was to eat dinner with the family and head to bed. This was a routine he disobeyed quite often. 

Sapnap was born with stars in his eyes and fire in his heart. When night fell, he’d slink out of his thatched window and to the wall that surrounded his hometown. He ran down gravel streets illuminated by fresh-lit lamps. He’d watch the mobs gather, watch the night guard head out to dispel the monsters, and resolve himself to be a warrior. Someone who wasn’t afraid of anything. 

When he told the other children of his rebellion, they gasped in awe. Sapnap was good at spinning his own narrative, at framing disobedience like a brush off the shoulder for real danger. No one ever doubted his tales. It helped that he was athletic with a mean streak, one of the best fighters the town had ever seen, and the other kids lauded him for it. He had his choice of both sparring partners and the social circle. 

But Sapnap was stubborn. He didn’t want just any friend. He wanted to know what the boy that lived on the outskirts of town was like.

George lived down the path. A path out of the town, through the wall and into the woods that dotted the lands. Sapnap wasn’t allowed to go out to the forest, which is exactly why he did with the same braziness that propelled all his decision-making. 

The cabin at the end of the path was small and homely, a single room building with an attic. The residents weren’t considered a part of the community; they had journeyed to the town in refuge from a fallen server. Their voices were odd, uppity accents that didn’t match the local drawl. 

Sapnap loved making fun of it. He didn’t yet understand the exhaustion and fear that baited their breaths, the hushed tones of misplaced wanderers.

George’s mother was a sickly woman with deep blue eyes. She spent her days in bed with her son acting as more of a guardian than she did. He never faulted her for it, never resented the work he did to help her. No one ever thinks of the ill and unabled. When the guards of the town that visit by to see their new home tout tenants of survival, George notes they never consider sickness. They never consider infirmary or invalid. They speak of conquest and monsters, not of the wear of clothing or maintaining a steady food supply. 

He learns from this oversight. He remembers that there is a silent part of survival, one born of humble, continuous efforts. There’s unspoken effort within every epic story, the boring work too menial to mention in passing. George learns that his labors and loves are the sort that stay to the shadow. He learns people underestimate him, and he takes it into account wherever he goes.

Still, the labor of love took a toll. It meant staying indoors when the other children ran amongst the streets, scraping their knees, living. It meant reservation, a lack of connection with peers. Except for the arrogant boy with blisters on all his fingers and a wooden sword at his back. The boy who becomes his best friend, who drags him to the training grounds out on days he spends cooped up teaching himself how to read.

When Sapnap’s father loses a life in a village raid, George is there with Sapnap as he sits on the roof of his home sobbing, with a hand on his back in quiet solidarity.

When George’s mother dies her final death, a long breath drawn out as her body remains on its bed, Sapnap runs to get the townfolk. His family welcomes George into their home.

GeorgeNotFound and Sapnap are, by all accounts, nobodies. They are not rich, they are not powerful, and they only have each other. 

It is enough.

They survive.

They grow up.

When they leave the town together, Sapnap brings an iron axe and shield. George with a handful of golden apples. He leaves his books; he doesn’t want others knowing he can read, and he has no interest in magecraft. 

They do not go on to become heroes.

Their biggest contribution to the collective servers is the meager grunt work they do for BadBoyHalo, gathering potion reagents. That, and Sapnap’s freelance mercenary work. But that causes more problems than it solves, and Sapnap doesn’t like to talk about it. There’s shameful work in the shadows, not the proud kind that cavorts in the light with favor and prestige. George leaves him alone about it.

They’re an odd pair. But they have each other. They know each other.

Sapnap wasn’t a monster.

George wasn’t a weakling.

Yet here they were in a harsh new world, yelling at each other with sharp words they didn’t mean. 

When George gets back to the outskirts of the forest, it’s dusk. Sapnap’s set up a campfire. There’s a wooden sword at his side, like when they were kids. Unlike when they were kids, there’s dried fish blood stained on the side of it. The meat hangs on the fire, roasting. There’s logs laid out around the area, makeshift seats close to the warmth. Sapnap stares into the flame like he’s a diviner, his face painfully neutral. The risen skin from the slap earlier has settled down without leaving so much as a bruise.

George sits beside him. He lets him have the silence for a moment longer. 

Sapnap breaks it first. “Sorry I snapped at you.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you knew.” 

“Well duh. It’s a pretty shitty spot and we’re probably going to die, but hey, it was a good day.” Sapnap takes a stick from the side of the coals, an impromptu fire poker, and nudges the coals.

“Sometimes, I—” _Sometimes I mix up your brashness with naivete. Sometimes I think you’re stupid, and I’m sorry. I’m scared. I want to protect you. You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother and I can’t lose you._

“I know.” Sapnap finishes. And he does. There’s nothing more to be said. 

It’s forgiveness. For both of them.

George smiles. 

Sapnap taps his fingers together and grabs one of the fish from the campfire. “Here. Eat.”

“I don’t like the fish bones.”

“Fuck you then.”

They laugh together. George chuckles before it spills over like a boiling pot, Sapnap snickers.

“What do we do now?” George ponders aloud while wondering if the cooked food will burn his fingers.

Sapnap sighs and crosses his arms. "We could pray."

"Right. And god will listen to us." George hunches over and manages to take a sliver of flesh without burning himself. “ _Us_.”

"You never know." Sapnap’s on his third whole fish. Despite the seriousness of the conversation, George can’t help but feel disgusted at how quickly he’s devouring food. There’s no way his fingertips aren’t burning.

“You’re going to choke.” George cautions.

Sapnap hardly breathes before he responds, “Choke on my dick.”

“Gay.”

“Pussy.”

George rolls his eyes as Sapnap guffaws. 

A third voice chimes from the direction of the forest.

“Hello.”

Sapnap and George stop in their tracks. Sapnap’s arm darts to his weapon and he rises.

It’s a man. He stands within the safety of the treeline, firelight illuminating him in shades of orange. He’s wearing a green cloak with decorative stitching on the outside seams and around his hood. Beneath the cloak fades into black. George recognizes the stitching as letters. Letters of Standard Galactic. 

That’s not the most startling thing about him, though. George’s breath catches.

He’s wearing a pure white mask with a face etched onto it. A simple smile with two dots for eyes. He’s not holding a sword in return, he’s not shielding. It doesn’t look like he’s carrying much of anything at all.

Sapnap drops his stance. Huffs. Smiles, like he’s figured something out.

“Oh, you want some?”

“What?” The man tilts his head. Or rather, mask. There’s not a spot of skin on his body open to the night air. Everything is cloaked in swaths of dark fabric.

“Right, what?” George echoes the stranger. 

“I stabbed a lot of fish brains. It’s all good.” Sapnap waves over from the shadows. “C’mere, no need to be a stranger. I imagine it smells great.”

The stranger pauses. Like he’s been asked his opinion on what kind of weaponry is best. Like he’s pondering a hard fact.

Then he shrugs. He strides over into their base camp, as light as if he were skipping.

“Alright, let’s get you hooked up!” Sapnap turns his b

George asks first. “What’s your name?”

“Dream. It’s Dream.”

“Dream.” George repeats. “I didn’t think there was anyone that could be this far out.”

Dream makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a scoff. “I’m a speedrunner.”

That was a good explanation. Speedrunners were explorers on steroids, conquering and mapping servers like checking items off of a grocery list. They did the work of architects, alchemists, and occasionally mages too. The good ones, at least. Ilumina came to George’s mind first. Ilumina was a hero, a myth. 

He’s never heard of Dream.

“Dream, that’s a hell of a cool name.” Sapnap faces George, awe and amusement as he smiles. “He looks like a chill dude.”

“Dude, of course.” Dream mimics, and George’s mouth sours.

Sapnap’s mood lifts from carefree to ecstatic. 

“I think Dream is going to be my new best friend,” he declares with a grin on his face that George thinks looks too much like a smirk for his own good. “You just met—Hey!” Dream sits with them on the other end of the log, trapping George in the middle. 

Sapnap tosses up another cooked fish. This one he skewers with the poker and passes over George. Dream takes it in his gloved hand.

George opens his mouth to continue when he looks down.

There’s a flash of blue pinned on the inside lapel of Dream’s cloak. A cornflower.

George stares.

“What?”

“You—”

For a moment, he almost voices it. Almost confronts that this stranger was watching him in the woods, that he took the gift. George almost voices that he knows and gives away his position.

Then, he realizes.

They’re playing a game.

Obviously Dream saw him in the forest.There’s no reason for him not to mention it, just as there is reason for him not to reveal himself. And what kind of asshole greets people with, “That’s interesting?” There’s no reason. Unless. Unless, that is, George doesn’t have all the information, and the stranger is planning.

It’s a game of omission. A bit like flirting, but there’s no reward for testing the boundaries. Like foreplay without the edge. It’s an insidious game, one that will shatter the moment Sapnap realizes. Sapnap’s not stupid, no, but he’s bad at this particular mind game. The game of implication.

George likes logical reasoning. He considers himself to be a logical person. Right now, there are three statements in his mind, and he makes an inductive inference:

_Strangers who want to help reveal themselves immediately._

_Dream is a stranger._

_Dream did not reveal himself._

_Therefore, Dream is not here to help us._

It’s simple, really. But Sapnap wasn’t there. Sapnap doesn’t know Dream was watching him. There’s also the unanswered question:

_Why is he here?_

He amends his statement. “You haven’t eaten yet.”

There’s a moment of stillness and George crosses his fingers and prays to whatever Sapnap wants him to that he wasn’t too obvious.

Dream tilts his head and the mask smiles.

“I’m not that hungry. Do you want it?”

George takes it. 

That’s his introduction to Dream. George formed a picture in his head of what kind of life Dream leads; no, he’s formed two, the illusory and the actual. They’re disjointed pictures, they don’t line up with each other. He’s a speedrunner, he’s intimidated by two other players. He’s a liar by omission. He’s calm and charismatic. He’s afraid to approach others. He’s been living alone for a while, out in the wilderness. His clothing is intricately designed, immaculately maintained. 

It doesn’t make sense. But he’s tired and it’s been a long day. He’ll ponder possibilities after the night watch. He bites into the skewer and wonders why food tastes so much better on a stick.

George doesn’t notice Sapnap sword hasn’t dropped from his side. Nor does he recognize the out-of-character friendliness as an act. 

Dream’s mask smiles at them.

That’s how the story begins.


	2. George Tells Dream About Love (No Homo Though)

The next day breaks harsh and bright. 

George is grumpy. His eyes sting as he rubs them. The nip of the pre-dawn air makes him long for a sweater, a blanket, something to keep his bare arms from the elements. He shivers and bites his lip. 

His stomach growls. 

George sighs and looks down from where he sits on the log seat to the extinguished campfire. There’s not even scraps of leftovers from last night. He’s awake to watch the sunrise as the dawn solidifies the lack of sleep that settles like a blanket of annoyance into his bones. 

He’s never understood why people love to watch the sun rise in the morning. It’s not new or interesting; the sun rises every day without fail and the world clears. In fact, the only thing George would consider pleasant about mornings was the cleansing fire that purged hostile mobs. 

And even then, there were downsides.

The rank scent of monsters burning greets the nostrils as he huffs. There’s a sizzling noise in the distance like an egg in a frying pain. 

George turns to follow the sound. A zombie has wandered out from beneath a tree, its body rendered burnt and useless. Its mouth hangs open, filled with rotten, yellow teeth. There, he sees the source of the sound.

The zombie’s eye rolls out and melts into a puddle of gray goo in the light. 

George crosses his arms and huffs. 

“Great.”

At least he's not hungry anymore. 

It’s his turn for sentry duty as Sapnap rests above in a tree branch. They don’t have an established shelter, there’s no walls to guard them, and the ground is a heatsink. One of the first rules of survival: don’t sleep on the dirt without a blanket or a form of shelter. The earth takes and takes and takes warmth as the night grows colder. It’s why beds are crucial, why even a hammock suffices for rudimentary survival. 

Not that it’s impossible to sleep on the ground, but he really, really doesn’t want to. He is not huddling up next to Sapnap of all people for warmth. Sapnap, who tosses and turns and groans in his sleep. The same Sapnap who snores and slaps at all around him as his arms gain a mind of their own. 

It’s that reason why Sapnap takes the first shift and George tucks his arms into each other by the ashes of the campfire to try and rest. George refuses to do it the other way around.

He doesn’t even feel satisfied knowing he was right as the snores swell through their base camp.

George kind of hopes Sapnap falls out of the tree. 

While they forgive each other, George is still upset about dying, and he feels he’s earned that right. He’s had the time to mull it over and he’s decided on revenge. As for the flavor of this revenge, he won’t pull pranks or try the silent treatment. That could backfire into actual bickering, and George does not want to cross that line again. It’s too risky. One misplaced sentence and a heated argument could lead to a death message spoken out from his walkie-talkie stranding him in the middle of nowhere, his best friend down two lives.

But that snoring is getting on his last nerves.

He settles on the idea of psychological warfare. 

George has had time to stew his thoughts. He needs to be annoying, not abrasive. A tactic that will make Sapnap question if George is exacting his revenge on purpose or not. Like he thought earlier, the silent treatment wouldn’t last a day. 

Hence, the list. 

He’s spent his shift concocting a list of malapropisms of Sapnap’s name long enough to reach the build height limit.

It helps the time pass. 

That, and watching Dream.

George assures himself it’s not weird. He and Sapnap (for some reason roping an imaginary Sapnap in to assist his mental gymnastics helps) need to be wary of the stranger that has waltzed into their lives. It isn’t weird at all, and being this defensive about it in his head is definitely making that stance more believable. 

Although, it’s not as if his observations are for naught. He’s come to an odd conclusion.

Dream doesn’t sleep. At least, he doesn’t think Dream does.

The man sits at the base of a tree adjacent to Sapnap’s with his mask tilted down. George knows he’s not asleep, though. His fingers twist and dawdle, he shifts his position, and every so often he turns to watch them. It’s as if he wants to display the semblance of sleep but his impatience keeps catching up.

George takes a moment to observe him in the new light. Dream is wearing fingerless gloves, but there’s a reason he didn’t notice until daybreak:

Dream’s fingertips are pitch black.

They remind him of Bad’s.

( _ “These? Oh, it’s from magic, magic backfire. Don’t worry about it, I’m perfectly fine!” _ )

It hadn’t looked fine. It looked singed and painful. But George was in no position to inquire further at the time and Sapnap hadn’t noticed. There were many things the both of them were in the dark about in regards to BadBoyHalo, and Bad appeared content with that.

Regardless, it wouldn’t change the fact that he was their friend.

Even if it was fucking creepy.

Dream’s fingers don’t look singed. They don’t look burned or char-covered. As his fingers idle, George thinks the best reason as to why they look the way they do is that, well, they always have. He’s not one to judge a book by its cover (he never would have gotten through his mother’s private collection were that the case) and Dream is not the weirdest looking guy he’s ever seen. He’s just. . . odd. Odd in a manner unlike a man in a cat onesie, odd in mannerism.

He said he was a speedrunner. They’re off-color (George smiles at his own pun) types.

George has always wanted to be a speedrunner.

It’s the perfect mixture of hyper-competency and freedom he’s always wanted. There’s a degree of mastery to the job, and the risks abetted by the fact that he formerly had three lives. It was his safety net which was supposed to encourage him to take the plunge into something risky and reckless but spur on a new chapter of his life.

Perhaps planning that out in the first place was the problem.

He began to lose his focus to his thoughts as they drift back to Dream.

Dream’s mask is a color in between polished diorite and quartz. If quartz was a stone that could weather and age with tinges of gray, George thinks that would look similar to the mask’s materials. The black dots and line that compose the face of it aren’t ink, either. They bounce with mirth and a delightful unknowing that sparks the stirrings of annoyance.

If George had to guess, he’d say their new companion had an ego. 

Then there was the fact that Dream didn’t seem like a speedrunner. Impossible materials and composition, he could forgive. He’d seen mages and heard of modders. No, it was how Dream carried himself. He walked with no urgency and his movements were sloppy, unplanned. He carried no compass or clock, couldn’t care less about the arrival of nighttime. He watched them for hours (a hypothesis that George is willing to indulge for this line of thought, it makes sense and until he finds contradictory proof he’s sticking with it) of valuable resource-gathering and travel time. 

George met Illumina once on the streets of Hypixel. He was gone in a kind word and a well-wish, always looking behind his back before he disappeared again.

He thought back to Dream’s hands tapping and matched the mannerism. They were similar. But were they similar enough?

He didn’t know. It was possible he couldn’t know with Dream.

Waves of heat from the rising sun wash over the camp. Dawn comes day as George rests his arm under his chin.

Dream is an enigma. Even worse, he’s the kind of enigma that George wants to trust. He’s looking for excuses, been trying to rationalize his behavior at every turn. Truth be told, George would like another friend, an ally in a moment of loneliness.

Is Dream an ally?

An unexpected voice snaps him out of it.

"What are you looking at?"

George screams.

Sapnap falls out of the tree. 

Dream, formerly much farther away, stands over him with a coy look. His mask has taken on the appearance of a smirk. George’s heartbeat pounds into his ears. He misses what Dream says next as he extends a hand to help George stand, the gold embroidery of Standard Galactic on his sleeve swaying gently in the morning breeze.

George notices a flash of color at Dream’s neck.

The blue cornflower is still pinned on the inside of his cloak.

He slaps the hand away with the back of his and stands on his own.

“Dream, don’t do that!” He spits the last word out, covering up his mouth with a hand. His cheeks burn with embarrassment.

Dream’s body shudders beside him and laughs a shaky, wheezy thing out of his chest. 

“You should have seen your face!” He coughs out as George’s blush settles and his nose hitches up, displeased.

“Why would you even do that?”

“You see George, it’s because I can hear your thoughts.”

George froze.

“Dude, he’s fucking with you and you’re taking the bait every time. I didn’t think you were that gullible, shit.” Sapnap wiped a tear from his eye, then rubbed his back. “Ow. Dream, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

Sapnap seems to take that answer as satisfactory. 

“Well, now I’m hungry. I’ll go get breakfast.” An unspoken,  _ since none of you are going to do it _ , followed in the silence after.

George shook his head. “Let me know if you see a fox.”

Sapnap looks back at George like he’s stupid and waved a hand. “You’ll know if I see a fox.”

George smiles. He hopes there’s a fox around. Sapnap deserves to be in a good mood all day, even if he loses hours of time trying to pet it.

Once more, Dream draws him out of his good humor.

“What’s that about?”

George thinks it’s fairly obvious, but explains regardless. “Sapnap likes foxes. He thinks they’re better than dogs, or cats, and he’s wrong.” George emphasized. Sapnap seemed like the dog type, one to wander out and find a wolf he could teach to bite and scratch. Truth be told, he’d always had a weakness for the elusive orange creatures.

At least, George was told they were orange.

Considering all that, Dream’s next question manages to blindside him.

“Why have a preference?” When George doesn’t answer, Dream continues. “I mean, what’s the point? The wolf and the cat are the best; foxes don’t provide any advantage. They eat your things. What’s the point?” He reiterates.

“It’s what he likes. What kind of answer do you expect? He’s loved them since. . . forever.” 

“Loved?”

“Oh.” It’s like a lever flips, and all of George’s aggression uncoils into a slump of disbelief. “I am not explaining love to you.” It’s too cliché and George refuses to take even a step in that direction. There’s no walking it back once he does.

“Oh it’s  _ love _ .” Dream mocks back, as if he’s understood anything.

George cuts right through the board of their game with a blunt sentence: “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

For a moment, Dream tenses. George expects the worst, his feet shifting to brace for whatever impact he’d foreseen.

Then, Dream’s shoulders drop.

“Not really.” He confesses. A noise that sounds like a chuckle bubbles up from behind the mask.

It’s the first bit of honesty George has heard from him since they’ve met. For a man wearing a mask, it feels as if he’s finally privy to a bit of his face.

It’s oddly intimate. Then again, what isn’t odd with Dream?

The moment sweeps out from under him as quickly as it came, like the tide. Dream straightens his stance.

It’s quiet. George wishes Sapnap would hurry up with breakfast.

“Love is. . . family. Connections and silly attachments. It’s brothers and stories and knights and kings. Did you grow up in the woods?” _ A field? A town? Where did you grow up? _

Dream doesn’t answer. If George could see behind the mask, he’s sure Dream’s eyes would be turned towards the sky in heavy contemplation.

“Knights and kings.” It’s not a question, it’s a step onto unsteady ground.

“I think it’s called chivalry. Like in  _ King Arthur _ , we had a few of those.”

Dream’s tone shifts, accusatory. “You can read?”

George feels like throwing his hands up to deescalate the situation. Instead, he counters with an accusation of his own: “You shouldn’t try and pretend you know more than you do. You can ask.”

“What if I don’t like asking?”

“Then maybe I should take a nap, because our conversations are exhausting.”

“Do you like sleeping?”

“Not really.” He answers without thinking. He’s had bad experiences with nightmares. Mostly shadows of smoke and bone, of wars he can’t remember and grievances he can’t name. Sometimes Sapnap’s fighting among them, sometimes it’s Bad. Then he realizes. A smile breaks on his face like the sun. “You  _ asked _ .”

Dream shrugs.

George ventures into the unknown with a question that’s been bothering him.

“Is it magic?”

“What?” Dream’s head is still in the clouds, preoccupied. 

“The mask. It moves. It emotes.”

“Oh, right. Oh yeah. It does.”

The syllables and intonation perfectly matched George’s own.

For some reason, the hair on George’s arms stood up.

“Where do you live, again?” He asked, knowing full well Dream had never told them.

“You guys are still going?” Sapnap strode up from the forest, a plucked chicken in each hand, snapping the tension like sticks in his grip. He stops and elbows George, equal parts playful and harsh. “Ease up on the new guy.”

“Don’t tell me you’re not curious.” George counters, frustrated. He was so close to tearing down Dream’s walls, too.

“Hey, it’s no problem.” Dream makes the concession graceful, as if he hadn’t been tiptoeing around glass before. A black fingertip points out to the jungle. “There. I have a treehouse on the other side. It’s one of my bases.”

_ Speedrunners shouldn’t have permanent bases _ , George wants to bite back before assessing the situation. He looks like a sore loser, someone startled into a bad mood who won’t give the innocent jokester a break.

He exhales. Smiles.

“Maybe we should stay there for the night.”

“Woah, that’s forward! I didn’t know you were like that, George.”

Just like that, George sees the perfect opportunity to set his plan in motion.

“Shut up, Napsap.”

Sapnap frowns and his mouth opens, hangs there as he tilts his head, then shuts it again.

“I’ll get the campfire going again.”

“God, all you want is an opportunity to burn something.”

“Do you want to eat or not?!”

Dream watches them bicker over the cinders of their fire. Something worms its way up his chest and settles like lava.

He watches the two argue without reason and thinks about love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's so fun to write these three. Hopefully Dream doesn't get too carried away with the king and knight thing. Next chapter's about respawning and the nitty gritty of how it feels. 
> 
> Until then.

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, I'm on Tumblr as starofroselight.


End file.
